


Sometime in October

by Genoa_Lexia



Category: Check Please! (Webcomic)
Genre: Gen, M/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-01-03
Updated: 2019-01-03
Packaged: 2019-10-03 05:18:06
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 883
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17277788
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Genoa_Lexia/pseuds/Genoa_Lexia
Summary: Anyway, Kent Parson was not a narcissist. He wasn't in love with himself and he didn't think he was better than everyone else. He'd worked for everything he had with everything he had and he'd brought his mother and his sister up out of the shadows they'd grown up in.Kent Parson was not a narcissist. Up until he turned 20, he'd only loved one man and it certainly wasn't himself. Now, six years later, that list had gone up and even hit double figures, but he still wasn't on it.See, Kent Parson really wasn't a narcissist. But, Goddamn, he liked seeing the wall-high photo of himself at the entrance to the Aces Stadium - skates on, Cup in hand, and captioned with a list of achievements starting with "Sportsman of The Year - 2011" and ending with "Highest NHL point-scorer".





	Sometime in October

Anyway, Kent Parson was not a narcissist. He wasn't in love with himself and he didn't think he was better than everyone else. He'd worked for everything he had  _with_ everything he had and he'd brought his mother and his sister up out of the shadows they'd grown up in.

Kent Parson wasn't a narcissist. He never had cause to want for partnership at night - or, really, at anytime - and he didn't even need to use any of his considerable charm to do so. The boys enjoyed mocking his so-called prettiness in the locker room and he and Segs had spent a Swiss winter trading stories and comparing features, so, well, he was never lacking for male company either. Frankly, all Kent knew about seducing men was that, well, he was good at it - for whatever reason.

No, Kent Parson was not a narcissist. Up until he turned 20, he'd only loved one man and it certainly wasn't himself. Now, six years later, that list had gone up and even hit double figures, but he still wasn't on it.

See, Kent Parson  _really_ wasn't a narcissist. But, Goddamn, he liked seeing the wall-high photo of himself at the entrance to the Aces Stadium - skates on, Cup in hand, and captioned with a list of achievements starting with "Sportsman of The Year - 2011" and ending with "Highest NHL point-scorer".

It was their first home game of the season and Kent, as he always did, had come in through the main entrance the hour before doors opened for ticket-holders, ready for warm up and the slightly heady feeling he still got from seeing that 5-foot-tall C on the chest of his image's counterpart.

"Boys!" He called, flicking his towel at Swoops' locker, slamming I closed as everyone's eyes went to him. "We need to completely thrash these fuckers so Langs' wife can finally retire her blue jersey,"

Jeff stomped his feet in agreement. Bélanger threw a used tissue in his vague direction.

"You know that means you can't spend half the game flirting with Sorokhov, yeah?"

"Fuck you! He has softer hands than even Parser does-"

"And you caught his hatty in the 2004 final and decided you were going pro," Scraps intoned in a monotone.

"Please don't make him start this shit again,"

"Even I don't care that much about Sorokhov and I'm the only other Belarusian player in the fucking NHL," Haponienka snorted.

"He's basically Russian anyway-" Everyone groaned.

"Don't start  _that_ shit again Larichev, no one gives fuck about your weird boner for the Soviet Union or whatever the fuck,"

"Dude it's not a fucking boner - he was born in the eighties so he was born in the USSR," Sergei Larichev raised his voice to be heard over the grumbling and audible eye-rolls in the locker room. "The 'R' of which stand for Russia - so! He's fucking! Russian!"

"Trying to quash my cultural and national identity? _You're_ definitely Russian," Haponienka chirped, finishing lacing his trainers and saluting the room on his way out to the rink.

"But, yeah, let's do it for Reena!" He said, popping his head back into the room. A wave of mocking cheers rose up and Kent shook his head.

"Come on, how was that better-received than when I said it?" He said, picking up his stick and shaking his head.

"We can't take you seriously without the helmet on bro," Scraps said, swearing as he realised he needed to rewrap his stick.

"Yeah when we can see our face it's just-" Swoops mimed.... Something. Kent wasn't sure what but it seemed unsavoury.

"Here lies Kent Parson's captaincy, killed by a too-pretty face and too much time spent at the rescue centre instead of the rink," Bélanger sighed, bowing slightly as he, too, headed to the ice.

* * *

Scraps took the puck when it dropped and took it down the line to where Swoops took the first goal for the game. The game went on for the appropriate number of minutes after that but Kent's mental replay caught none of it. The Aces lost 1-4 and Kent went home with a heavier stomach than the events called for. When it emptied six hours later, expelling the bottle of tequila he'd pulled from the highest cupboard in his kitchen as soon as he got home, Kent brought up the footage from Jack's last game, stopping every time the camera flicked to the sidelines where Bob was watching. He deleted the message from his mother saying she'd gone to see his father to say happy birthday and they'd had a lovely evening and maybe they might reconnect, and whatever the rest of it said.

Jack Zimmermann had taken a lot from him and he'd never been shy in telling Kent what he'd taken in return. Vincent Arquette had taken just as much from him. Kent hadn't even taken his name. Sitting, halfway to drunk for the second time that night, watching his first love do what they should be doing together and the best father he'd ever had being proud and being  _there_ , Kent thought that, if Jack's overdose hadn't been the accident he'd always thought it was- well, Kent could maybe understand it.

Kent Parson was not a narcissist. He was much too close to a masochist for that.


End file.
